gadabout

What until the line drifts behind your elbow before starting your cast.

Glad to hear you’re doing better!

If there are no scented candles in it, it’s a man cave.

Thanks Mark. I’m not happy with the amount of bucktail I used, but like the overall look.

Thanks MuskyFlyGuy and niveker.

Keuka Sunset

Agree with all of the above. If you want to practice whip finishing before you start, that’s not a bad idea. You can even use a toothpick, instead of a hook..

I enjoy Matt O’Neal’s videos. Seems like a good guy. Also Dressed Irons and tightlinevideo.

I still use my Orvis Super-Tackle-Pac. I agree with you. It’s a great layout. I really don’t think about what it weighs when I’m fishing. I’m too absorbed in what I’m doing.

I generally stick to the established pattern. If I don’t have the materials on hand for a particular fly, then there are plenty of other flies I can tie until I get them. Too much substitution causes fly patterns to evolve away from their original design. This just causes confusion. If you change materials on a fly, give it a different name.

Good to see you back! I will take a pass on this swap though.

Very nice!

Hang in there buddy. The fish are waiting for your speedy recovery.

TV snack table in front of your recliner is probably the easiest short-term solution. You’ll probably want a Dust Vac too.

My fly tying desk is in my living room, so when I’m tying, the TV is usually on and my wife will be watching it. If I want some other background, I’ll play YouTube videos on my iPhone. The scenario you’re suggesting is not ideal for fly tying, as you’ll usually want some kind of light-colored solid background in your tying space to view the fly against. That being said, when I first started tying years ago, I made a portable fly tying station and set it up on a TV snack table in my living room. While the TV was usually on, I don’t think I was literally trying to watch TV while tying.

Steeldrifter’s answer pretty much spells it out. It’s a bit of work, and the results may or may not be very satisfying. Sliding a pre-made cork grip over the blank will rarely give as good a result as building a grip right on the blank out of individual cork rings and then shaping it. A poor fit between the grip and blank will definitely be felt when you’re casting. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to learn to appreciate a cigar grip.

For trout fishing, I have always used a vest. I like to have a full complement of flies with me at all times. I don’t select flies before a trip. They are all in there, as I really don’t know what I’ll need until I get to the river. For warmwater and saltwater, I can get away with a much smaller selection of flies. Consequently, a small sling pack does the job for these applications.

I think it’s a data base tool that would have some use for new tiers. But as SilverCreek suggests, tiers that are past the beginner stage usually start with a fly they wish to tie and then need the pattern. And then they need to figure out what materials they might need to pick up to tie it. Possibly, thIs data base can be used this way as well. For what it’s worth, I tried searching for five or six common patterns, but not a single one came up. Then I tried entering a pattern, but when I needed to enter a material that was not on the list, I couldn’t see any way to add it.

Agreed. Fly tying is a labor intensive activity. The materials cost per fly should be negligible, but it’s not. Hooks are one of the biggest factors in the materials cost of a fly. At 25 to 50 cents a hook for name brand hooks, that is just too much.

I learned to fish on baitcasting tackle, then spinning tackle shortly thereafter. With baitcasters, I was used to casting with my right, then switching hands to retrieve. Basically, there was not much of a choice. Then when I learned to use spinning tackle, I got used to the idea of casting right / reeling left. It made some sort of sense. When I started fly fishing, years later, I could have gone either way. I went with spinning’s approach of “cast right, reel left, no need to switch hands”. It just made the most sense, even though I knew it was bucking tradition.

My CFO III is my favorite trout reel of all time. I bought mine in 1981 and it’s still going strong. Click and pawl reels and Medalists are all I use in freshwater. You couldn’t give me one of those large arbor reels. Or those things that look like the skeletal remains of a fly reel. Fly tackle has gotten really ugly in recent years.

I have a couple of white 3-ring binders near my tying desk. When I think I need a background, I stand one of them up behind the vise. I had no idea that somebody made something just for this purpose.

Honestly, I’d never heard of a profile plate until I saw this post, so I had to google it. Apparently, it’s something that attaches to the vise that provides a white background which helps you see the fly better, or photograph it. I don’t know if I’d buy one myself, but there have certainly been times when I would have found one helpful.

I’m a little late to the party, but — Wow!

Got a nice box of flies today. Good work gentlemen.